I grew up in Robert Schuler’s Garden Grove Community Church, Dutch Reformed. The Crystal Cathedral was built shortly after I got married and left.
When I was eight I asked my mom to take me to the little Evangelical church at the end of our street. She began to drop me off at Sunday school. One Sunday the teacher presented the gospel and encouraged us to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. She told us we should try to be willing to do anything for God, like be a missionary. Well, I really wanted to be saved, but I did not want to be a missionary. I had to think this over. I went home. I thought about it for a while and struggled in my little eight-year-old soul against selfish desire.
Some weeks later I convinced myself that I would be willing even to be a missionary, and I asked Jesus to come into my heart. For years I had fervent faith, even up to my first year of college. Then the theory of evolution-and the desire to sin-enticed me to abandon my faith, and I conveniently became an atheist for two years during the sixties. Then my mom gave me a copy of Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth about the Second Coming of Christ.
After reading this, I decided that perhaps the Bible was still relevant after all and not some dusty old book; so I rededicated my life to Christ. I told my boyfriend I couldn’t continue to date him since he wasn’t a Christian, and I gave him a copy of The Late Great Planet Earth to read. He committed his life to Christ, and a year later while he was in medical school we took a two-year teacher-training course on the Bible called the Bethel Series. We got married, taught Bethel, led small group Bible studies and studied the Bible in depth.
Wanting to know exactly what words meant, I bought a Greek dictionary. But in order to use it you had to use a concordance and the King James Bible first to be sure you were looking up the correct Greek word. This was cumbersome, so I bought a Greek interlinear Bible and taught myself to read the Greek alphabet. I did not know Greek, but I could make out the words. This made looking up words easier and quicker.
We gradually realized that the teaching we were hearing in most churches seemed to be contradicted by certain Bible verses. No problem. All we had to do was show people what the Bible said. My husband even wrote a two-volume book and taught at a Bible college to point out the errors of the once-saved-always-saved theology. Then we discovered that most Protestants weren’t really sola scriptura after all-they clung to the Protestant traditions begun by Luther and Calvin, in spite of Scripture.
For ten years in Bible studies we attempted to show how the Bible did not support “eternal security.” We were called heretics, and my husband kept getting complaints from members and fellow-elders about his teaching from the pulpit. Discouraged and disillusioned, I decided that I should just settle down to live out the rest of my life listening to sermons I often disagreed with when they didn’t irritate me.
In my heart I was prideful, arrogant, and critical. No church suited me. They were all wrong on certain points according to my understanding of the Bible, which I was convinced was led by the Holy Spirit. And yet I sensed that my attitude was not Christ-like, so I prayed about it. I secretly worried that I was a heretic. I desperately wanted to find a church where I could simply worship God without being critical. So I tried to keep my mind from dwelling on criticisms. I was not thrilled, but perhaps I could be content.
In the summer of 1997, while perusing homeschool curriculum catalogs, I saw an apologetics course for junior-high-school students. The goal was to introduce Protestants to the Catholic faith and vice versa. The student was supposed to read the assigned books in a certain order if he was Protestant and in the opposite order if he was Catholic, so that the last book read confirmed him in his own faith tradition.
Since my oldest daughter, Heather, had just started college at the University of San Diego, a Catholic school, I decided this would be the perfect time to find out more about the Catholic faith so that if she came home with questions I would be able to answer them. I did not want her to become Catholic. I ordered three of the books. One of the books, Evangelical Is Not Enough, was written by a convert to Catholicism. He was the brother of prominent Evangelical Elizabeth Elliot. I had long been curious about why a Christian would join the Catholic Church. This should be interesting, I thought.
And it was. He explained the rationale behind many things Catholic. I found myself being annoyed that I had been filled with so many misconceptions. I now felt very broadminded toward the Catholic Church. But I did not sense the danger my Protestantism was in as I opened up the second book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism by Karl Keating. This book had Catholic answers to the charges against “Romanism” by “Bible Christians.”
By the time I had read about half of the book, I no longer felt broadminded-I was sick and terrified all at once. Mr. Keating was making way too much sense. Catholic? Never. It could not possibly be true. I slammed that book shut and decided to read the book that was supposed to confirm me in my Protestant faith, The Gospel According to Rome. But it didn’t help. It just wasn’t convincing. It merely explained why Catholicism was wrong according to Protestant interpretations of certain biblical passages. It never convincingly explained why the Catholic interpretations of verses that supported Catholic beliefs were wrong.
Now I really felt scared. I begged God to show me the truth about what was wrong with the Catholic Church. I did not want to be Catholic. I had never been anti-Catholic; I believed there were a few real Christians in the Catholic Church in spite of Catholicism. I liked Catholics, I just didn’t want to be one. I didn’t read anything for a bit. I needed to get my perspective back. I thought and prayed. I then picked up Keating’s book and finished it. The Catholic Church had very good reasons, biblical reasons, for her theology. But there had to be a good Protestant refutation-by somebody, somewhere . . .
I called a pastor associated with my church who had a ministry to bring Hispanics to a living Protestant faith. I told him what I was going through and he recommended The Gospel According to Rome. I told him I’d read it and it wasn’t convincing. Then he asked, “But what about the fact that Jesus had brothers?” I said, “I looked that up and the Greek word can be translated as kinsmanor brother, depending upon the context, so the Catholics could still be right about Mary being ever-virgin.” He promised to pray for me and we hung up. I stared into space and wondered, “Is that the best he can do?”
Six hours later my pastor called. We talked for two hours. Nothing convincing. Everything he said that was wrong with Catholics or the Catholic Church was also wrong with the Protestant churches. I wrote him all forty of my questions and outlined the twenty books I’d read by this time. We talked again after he had read my questions but he admitted that I knew more about the Catholic Church than he did, and he didn’t have time to get up to speed with me. He told me to go ahead and visit the Catholic Church. I did but kept searching for a Protestant refutation of the Catholic faith. There just had to be one.
Then I watched a video debate between two prominent Protestant apologists (Walter Martin and John Ankerberg) and Fr. Mitch Pacwa. Again, there was no refutation of Catholic claims. I could not believe it. There was no explaining what was wrong with Catholic exegesis, only what was wrong with Catholic beliefs according to Protestant interpretation of Scripture. Plus, I thought the debate gave the Protestants unfair opportunity to speak. Even my husband, hoping this would be a convincing Protestant reply, was disappointed.
I talked to ex-Catholics, one of whom I was surprised to learn was on the verge of returning to the Catholic Church. But no one could refute Catholic claims. Eighteen months after my inquiry began, I finally gave up and embraced the holy Catholic Church.
What convinced me? Well, my husband and I had already decided that the Bible does not teach sola fide, salvation by faith alone. It was comforting that the huge and ancient Catholic Church had always taught good works must be intertwined with faith-the obedience of faith as Paul opens and closes Romans.
As a sola scriptura Christian, I had been taught to take the Bible literally unless the writing was poetic. No one could explain why we did not take Jesus’ words regarding the Eucharist literally. “This is my body, eat it and you will live.” Luther believed in the Real Presence. When did this doctrine get thrown out? Why? By whose authority? What miracles verified this authority?
Some say the Catholic Church became apostate as early as A.D. 300. But since the Bible was canonized after that, how could I trust the Bible if I couldn’t trust the Church that canonized it in 386?
Some would say that the Catholic Church became apostate after the Bible was canonized. Due to the huge influx of pagans when Constantine legalized Christianity, the argument goes, the Catholic Church was infected with paganism. But how is it explained that Christian worship and beliefs in the first two centuries were Catholic and not “Protestant”? If the Catholic Church did become apostate, then wouldn’t that mean that Jesus’ promise that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church had failed?
Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli believed that Mary was always a virgin. When did this belief get thrown out? Why? By whose authority?
If the Catholic Church does not contain infallible teaching, then how can we trust the Bible, since the Catholic Church decided which books to include? Are we supposed to believe God removed infallibility from the Church and put it into the Bible once it was canonized? Where does Scripture say that? If it’s not in Scripture, doesn’t that make it a Protestant tradition?
No one could refute the claim that Peter was the rock upon which Christ built his Church. Protestant interpretations of “I give you the keys of the kingdom, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven” (Matt. 16: ) never quite satisfied. The Catholic interpretation made perfect sense.
Why couldn’t Mary have been assumed? Elijah and Enoch were. Millions of Protestants believe they will be assumed at the rapture.
Before the invention of the printing press, each Bible was laboriously hand-lettered. Personal copies of the Bible were costly and rare so people could not even own their own Bible like we do today. And even after the invention of the printing press, most people could not read. How then could reading the Bible be the primary key to leading a good Christian life? But the Catholic Church’s method of teaching her people would have exactly met the needs of people throughout the ages. Was I supposed to believe that sola scriptura was a new faith for the Church after the printing press?
If Christ promised to give us the Holy Spirit who would lead us into all truth, through the reading of the Bible alone, why are there so many different Protestant denominations? That this promise pertains in a special way to the apostles and their successors in the Catholic Church made more sense.
How can we be sure the Reformation was of God? In the Old Testament, God didn’t purify Israel by separating the godly and starting a new Israel. Luther and Calvin performed no miracles to substantiate their authority to break away from the Church.
By whose authority was it announced that the bread and wine of Communion were not the body and blood of Christ after fifteen hundred years of belief that the Real Presence of Christ was in Communion?
Why is it that the Catholic Church has the guts to hold the line on abortion, euthanasia, divorce, and homosexuality, but the Protestant churches are all over the map? Is this supposed to convince one about the corruption and paganism of the Catholic Church?
I found no convincing Protestant answers to these questions.
I was received into the Catholic Church at Easter 1999. Our four youngest children were received into the Catholic Church at Easter 2000. My husband and three oldest children are still Protestant, but they are very supportive, especially my husband. We celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a trip to Rome. My Protestant friends are still my friends and some are interested in my reasons for conversion. One will be entering the Catholic Church at Easter 2001.
I am thankful to my Protestant teachers for the solid foundation they laid in me about the truths of Christianity, the illusions of worldly passions, and encouragement to study God’s Holy Word. It fed my soul for forty years. Protestantism has much Christian truth, but it unraveled at the edges for me. I actually studied the Bible so much I studied myself out of Protestantism.
For the Protestant, there is a nearly silent hole, historically, between Acts and the Reformation. But the Catholic Church is solid all the way back to Christ. The theology is impeccable. I have no more cognitive dissonance between my faith and what the Bible says. This faith is so deep and so high, so poetically beautiful, so Jewish! I am thrilled to be Catholic. How can I keep my heart from singing?